As graduation season approaches, He Zonglin's unusual career path becomes even more evident. A class of 2022 college graduate, He never imagined that he would become a community worker, serving residents, organizing activities and writing promotional materials and news articles in Longgang District, Shenzhen City.

He had no concept of community work and didn't bother to learn about it before. 

"It was a pure coincidence that I ended up taking the exam. Originally, I planned to stay at home after graduation and prepare for other exams," He told CGTN.

Full-time community workers are professional personnel recruited through unified examinations and interviews by local civil affairs departments. In terms of job positions, these workers are classified as something other than civil servants or public institutions workers.

Due to the similarity in examination content, some see community workers as a stepping stone for becoming civil servants or public institutions employees and use the role as a transitional or backup option.

Tian Chen, who also became a community worker right after graduation, told CGTN that his primary motivation for entering the community was a sincere desire to serve the people and make a meaningful difference in the lives of the residents.

Both He and Tian have gained new insights into community work, realizing that it is more challenging than they initially imagined. Moreover, they have noticed that there are relatively few recent graduates working in similar roles within their community.

"The addition of recent college graduates can inject vitality into the community, and their higher educational background enables them to put their knowledge into practice and contribute to the development of the community, "said Tian.

He said in his locality, there is already a growing recognition of the significance of recent graduates. When recruiting community workers, dedicated positions are offered to recent graduates.

China's employment has remained fiercely competitive in recent years, with more and more fresh graduates entering the market each year.

China will see a record 11.58 million college graduates this year, according to earlier data from the Ministry of Education.

In early June, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security jointly issued guidance on improving employment opportunities for 2023 college graduates in communities.

The guidance emphasizes the need to strengthen efforts in recruiting full-time community workers directly from college graduates. It encourages the targeted recruitment of such positions in 2023 to be no less than 2022.

Social organizations across China have employed over 73,000 graduates from January to June this year, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on June 13.

The ministry also said that China had over 1.75 million community-level social organizations by the end of 2022, mainly responsible for organizing public welfare, charity, sports, entertainment and other activities in urban and rural communities.

(With input from Xinhua)